From car to computer crazed

When I was a kid, each fall on my way home from school I’d veer off the shortest route home to walk by a trucking firm that hauled new cars.

Well before I ogled newspaper photos of the new models, I would get an exclusive look at the sleek sheet metal riding on the open trailers and lined up in the trucking company lots.

This was not idle voyeurism. Every other year I knew that my Dad would buy one of these remarkable machines. A lot of people did. The Fifties were the height of the car culture. Detroit and its auto fantasy drove the bulk of American industry.

So as I’d approach the trucking lot in anticipation, I’d feel a rush of quasi-ownership. A compulsion really. An irrational lure.

For all kinds of reasons, besides the turning of hundreds of calendar pages, those days are over.

Today, cars last longer. We keep them longer. Much longer. We have to. I’ve lost my obsession for outrageous stylistic flair and the newest, latest. Owning a new car has no cache with my friends or family. My cars have been used for the past 20 years. Not clunkers exactly, but they’d been around their share of blocks.

Still, the feeling that I had approaching that trucking lot decades ago is still with me. Today, satisfying the consumptive urge costs less and achieves more — or at least I’d like to think it does.

What attracts me and millions of others now are new computers and associated geeky gadgets. The “much anticipated” label gets applied to every new mass-marketed computer device. These machines are “unveiled” just as Chevy Impalas and Pontiac Firebirds once were. Think no farther than the anticipation surrounding the iPhone 5, and the new Amazon tablet.

Here we have “not-so-major” purchases that still create buzz and carry status. Apple, today’s Chrysler or Lincoln or Cadillac, profits from high price tags partly for this reason. It also helps that the Cupertino giant is fixated on consumer satisfaction.

Computers are much more parts of our lives than cars were. And much more important to us. In fact, our cars rely on computers. Which is more difficult to replace, a stolen car or a stolen computer? We are “into” computers far more than we are "in" our cars. These wheel-less vehicles can transport us to real and imaginary worlds in nano seconds!

Oddly, points of comparison between computers sound similar to those once used in car marketing. Power, performance, speed, design. A current Intel campaign displays a sports car with half of its front appearance portrayed in x-ray. The caption reads, “Visibly_Smart....Stunning Visuals_Intelligent Performance”

No one ever told us we were “smart” or “intelligent” to buy the now iconic 1959 Chevy Impala but visuals and performance — computer selling points — were definitely in play.

Accessories also come into play. I have a new Mac Air (yes, Apple grabbed me again). Its keyboard lights up, presumably on the off chance I need to work on the Red Eye after the cabin lights have dimmed. The metallic graceful notebook is also light, thin and, well, sleek. These non-essentials no doubt played a role as I forked over a cool grand for an Air at the Apple “showroom.”

Didn’t cars once “grace” showrooms?

No list of comparisons would be complete without mentioning planned obsolescence, except in the case of computers you don’t get the feeling it is all that planned. The “latest technology” really is the latest. With cars, the basic technology never really changed until the introduction of the hybrid system.

Finally, there is the status-defining differentiation within lines. When Dad bought his new Buick, he bypassed the “entry-level” Special and the “luxury” Roadmaster and the similar, but less powerful Super. For him, the “Century” fit his persona. It was the closest thing that Buick had to a hot rod.

When I shopped Apple for my laptop, I too had a hierarchy of MacBook models to choose from. Good, better, best.

I got the feeling that the choices were there mostly to give me pause to ponder and engage with my options and prospective purchase. They defined the field. Besides, Apple seemed to be saying that it had given thought to my individuality. Steve Jobs had, in fact, considered me.

Buick showed the same marketing “sensitivity” to my Dad a half century ago.

Have we come all that far since then?

Joe, Steve and me

Yesterday, Joe Lieberman, Steve Jobs and I all did the same thing.

We celebrated our birthdays.

Not together, of course, but as Pisces, we no doubt were swimming in the same birthday stream.

Joe and I actually share the very same day of birth back in 1942, making us both 67. I’m not sure what this coincidence signifies, except that neither of us seems the wiser for it.

Lieberman was elected vice president back in 2000 but was denied assuming office by five Supreme Court votes. He’s followed a circuitous path since. A super-hawk on Iraq and no longer a Democrat, he actively campaigned for John McCain last fall.

At times in recent years, I’ve thought of calling Joe to play my 2/24/42 birthday card.

“Joe,” I’d say, “we’ve been through a lot of years together. I think it’s time we compared notes….”

He has a lot more than I do. I’ve tried to keep things relatively simple. If I could share the virtues of simplicity with Joe, it might be worth the call.

Steve, 13 years younger than Joe and me, celebrated his 54th birthday yesterday.

I’m typing this post on one of his elegant machines. I’ve been an Apple aficionado for years even though I’m not one to bond with brands. I’ve made an exception of Apple. It’s part trust (these things are bullet-proof) and aesthetics (my five-year-old iMac still adds a splash of grace and class to my office clutter.)

I learned of Jobs’ birthday only yesterday, but now it’s fun to weigh whether the 2/24 connection mysteriously strengthened my 25-year affinity for all things Apple.

So, a day late, I wish both Steve and Joe well. Steve, whose health may have taken a bad turn, is in particular need of kind thoughts. And, say what you will about Joe’s shifting politics, I’ve always considered him a congenial and gracious guy.

So, Joe and Steve, here’s to us!

Choosing Lloyd Reynolds over Barack Obama

Three days before the election, on a hot Sunday afternoon, I faced a choice between Barack Obama and Lloyd Reynolds.

It was a choice that only Portland could offer.

I chose Reynolds, a Portland treasure, even though he’s been dead for nearly 30 years.

The legendary professor of calligraphy, handwriting and, ultimately, life, was as charismatic, in his own way, as Obama is before a throng.

While Obama spoke to thousands in Waterfront park, nearly 200 of us jammed into the First Unitarian Church, a dozen blocks away, to hear Reynolds’ students praise their mentor and inspiration.

Many of us were drawn to the event by an excellent article by Bob Hicks in Saturday’s Oregonian.

We were mostly a gray-haired, devote assemblage. Perhaps one-third, when asked whether they had been Reynolds' students, raised their hands.

Several spoke of Reynolds’ influence on them. Inspired by Reynolds, Inga Dubay and Barbara Getty went on to teach doctors how to write clearly — and safely. After at least 150 presentations, the two estimate they’ve taught between 4,000 and 5,000 physicians how to make their writing legible.

As one emergency room physician told Dubay, “You’ve probably saved more lives than I have.”

The highlight of the Reynolds’ event was Reynolds himself, as seen in an old OPB video clip of him teaching a on-air class. The clip lasted only three or four minutes, but in that time Reynolds made one telling literary reference and got in a dig at the emerging vocabulary of graphic design. “I hate the word ‘layout,’” he scoffed. “We 'lay out' corpses!” Letters and words should be alive, not dead, he scolded.

The audience, many of them members of Portland Society for Calligraphy, laughed and nodded at hearing their mentor and teacher again. In 1968, Reynolds founded the society, which began as the “Western American Branch of the Society for Italic Handwriting" but mercifully simplified its name in 1983, five years after Reynolds died.

But listening to the stories about Reynolds, it's hard to imagine that he died at all. The audience was alive with and enthralled by his spirit.

Turns out that the very screen I am writing on was Reynolds-inspired. Bob Hicks, in his Oregonian story, recounts how Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and present CEO, was briefly a student at Reed College and was moved by the Reynolds legacy on the campus and by the master calligrapher's celebration of the written word. Jobs studied under Reynolds' hand-picked successor at Reed, Robert Palladino. Early on in the development of Apple's computers, Jobs made sure that their screens reproduced typography that was crisp, clear and beautiful.